Preparation
by nonyvole
Summary: Before every mission, there is at least a little bit of preparation that needs to be done. Will touch all films.
1. Chapter 1

Before every operation and assignment, there is always at least a little time to prepare. Hits at various points throughout the films.

* * *

When Natasha was assigned to go undercover at Stark Industries, she just sighed and asked for an extra day or two to go shopping and work on becoming "Natalie Rushman," personal assistant, because after reviewing the assignment she wasn't quite sure that she had the right clothes. Agent Coulson nodded, Accounting reminded her to save receipts, and Clint had started to sing "Pretty Woman" under his breath, so she decided that he had volunteered to come and hold bags, as well as help her study her cover story. She had used this persona before, but each time there were minor tweaks that she had to learn and integrate, and she really did need some new clothes.

She makes him drive to a mall, a big one near Philadelphia, while she's scanning some notes on the last time she had had to become Natalie, and on their arrival she takes Clint's arm and sweeps into the mall as he mutters "touch less rich, Nat," as he shifts her grip from his elbow to his hand. Dropping her chin slightly, she senses more than sees his nod. Clint was always good at noticing the really minute details, and how to make everything seem seamless. It still doesn't get him out of any potential embarrassment, yet, so their first stop is for lingerie. She makes him go inside, and hold the bag.

Over lunch in the food court, Natasha considers how to best keep in touch. SHIELD communicators might be a little too obvious if she kept one on her at all times, so their options are mostly limited to face-to-face meetings and coded texts, phone calls, and e-mails. It would be easiest if she just re-used previous methods, so long-distance boyfriend, family...she frowns slightly, not remembering where Natalie's family lives. Glancing across the table at Clint, who appears to be enjoying something dripping with fat and grease, she allows a slight look of disgust to come across her face. "I can't believe you _like_ that stuff babe," she declares, picking at her salad. "I mean, look at it!" The smallest wink, barely a flick of an eyelash, when he catches her eye. A flash of humor in his says that he caught it, and understands the meaning.

"But, Nat, lookit me, I'm a growing boy! And with you taking this job all the way out in California, I'll need to fill that empty space in my life." And then he starts humming "Every breath you take," and she snorts, picks up their meals, and dumps them in the trash, ignoring his protests. They're all fake, because she knows that he really didn't like his meal all that much. She still makes him carry all the bags, but allows him to hide the pink one.

They don't return to the Helicarrier but head to a SHIELD safe house in Delaware, where they cut all the tags off the clothing and wash everything twice. She tries on various combinations, with Clint lounging on a sofa, a TV tuned to the Stark Expo in the background, as he works on making things like her makeup look just slightly used, and reprogramming her cell phone. He helps her pack it all up in suitcases they had brought along, holding back a couple outfits so that she'd be able to get to California. She also takes the time to pull up on the computer the rest of Natalie's background information, printing it out and tossing it on the table.

The rest of the time in the house is filled with the two of them re-establishing codewords and trouble phrases, which range from mild boredom to "if I don't get out of here now I _will_ kill Tony Stark. Slowly. With a hairpin."

When Phil Coulson arrives with additional personnel, she is in full Natalie-mode, Agent Natasha Romanoff of SHIELD in a small, walled-off corner of her mind. She even hums along with Clint, because Natalie likes how her boyfriend knows all these random songs that say something, even if Natasha wants to tape his mouth shut, tie him down, and force him to watch endless amounts of Russian ballet. She even steals one of Clint's t-shirts, because that's just the way that Natalie is when she isn't working.

The next day, Natalie Rushman boards her flight to California.


	2. Chapter 2

Time for Thor.

* * *

When Clint gets his next assignment, it's straight from Director Fury, simply because Phil Coulson is out of town with Natasha. He's lying on his back on a table in the mess hall, waiting on Natasha – Natalie, he needs to remember he's playing the long-distance boyfriend – to call, when hand comes out of nowhere and shoves him off the table. He'd forgotten that Fury didn't like it when people put their feet on the table, never mind the rest of their body.

But, he's ordered to get a bunch of security together, Sitwell was the lucky one rounding up scientists, and start preparing to head out to New Mexico. Coulson was already heading in that direction from California, but there was something funny that needed evaluation. Nodding, Clint starts walking out of the room as the cell phone he was playing with rings. "Nat babe! Working on your tan?" the response has him laughing. "So grandpa called. There's something out west that he wants me to take a look at, think you could take a couple days and we can play in the ocean? The Expo? Aw, babe, it's like one of those Murphy's Laws or something. Talk to you later babe, love you bye." Turning, he looks at Fury, who nods. Since the other man knows what's going on with Stark, Clint just keeps on walking.

Clint likes the ideas of subordinates; all that he has to do is tell somebody that he needs twenty men and weapons, and by the time he hits his desk there's a list of names and supplies waiting in his e-mail. Pulling up weather reports has him adding wet weather supplies onto the list of supplies – nothing says that the weather will be anything other than hot and dry, but he didn't get this far in the world to expect the unexpected. He refrains from cold-weather gear, though, and adds a few more names onto the list. He sends out the orders, telling everybody that they've got three hours to make everything happen, or _they_ can go shopping with Natasha next time.

He skips wearing his usual uniform for the trip, since he'd rather blend in with everybody else. The scientists are coming later, flying out when the site has been set up. A cargo jet gets supplies and soldiers as far into New Mexico as is possible, then they all load up in trucks and Jeeps and keep on driving.

The rules are simple for traveling as a generic agent: suits, sunglasses, baseball caps as needed. The rest of the order, "act the phrase, 'we're from the government, and we're here to help you,'" is a bit harder for Clint, since out in the middle of nowhere, there's only lizards to see him turn on the satellite radio to classic rock and start dancing and singing in his seat as he's driving, Sitwell doing an awkward version of a head bang in the passenger seat, alternating with playing air guitar. The ringing of a phone leads to the entire caravan pulling onto the side of the road, while Sitwell reprograms the GPS and Clint delegates one Jeep to take a longer route and pick up enough fast food to feed their entire motley crew.

A raised eyebrow from Phil Coulson is all that they get as the caravan arrives at the crater, and Clint hands him a children's meal while directing different people to clear out the last of the civilians and start getting everything set up. He chooses to overlook the odd person wandering over to the hammer embedded in the ground and giving it a quick tug; as long as everything is getting set up for the arrival of the scientists in two hours, that's fine by him.

The next day, he watches as Coulson takes a few men and drives off, returning later shaking his head over how crazy scientists can be. Not up to Clint to argue, he just nods and walks off to check on the sentries.

That night, when Natalie calls from New York, he lays in the sand of the desert and stares at the stars while the code phrases fall aimlessly from his lips and their meanings float around in his head.


	3. Chapter 3

Pre-Avengers.

* * *

Clint wonders if he's been in this field too long when his reaction isn't "Aliens are real arrrgh run away!" but "eh, whatever." It makes it a little bit harder to watch Star Wars, but he didn't watch it for the aliens.

After all, Princess Leia was pretty damn hot in that bikini.

So when his assignment in New Mexico babysitting the scientists was over, and Natasha was done helping Stark fix his life, they get food and retreat to Natasha's room on the Helicarrier. Over what was claimed to be a "turkey dinner with all the trimmings," (turkey from a can, the potatoes were once powder, and they don't ever take any of the veggies after that time where a green bean blew up the mess hall) she tells him about working at Stark Industries and how she thinks she maybe shouldn't have taken so much time fighting those men while she was going after Vanko but she was so bored and pissed off at Happy because he wouldn't keep his eyes on the road and kept on watching her change, and that she's thinking about cutting her hair again, since having it long was more trouble than it was worth.

He talks about sitting around the New Mexico desert, and how the weather was completely and totally screwed up, but it was all good because aliens are real, and they decimated a small town. He describes being up in the crane, in a thunderstorm, hoping that even though he's the highest point around, the lightening would hit someplace else. He makes her laugh when he relays his discussion with Coulson about Thor, and how he's decided that if one man could beat up all of his hand-picked security guards that easily, then they all need a lot more training.

He doesn't need to point out that sure, the man was an alien, but one that had all of his powers taken away. It was embarrassing to see how easily his men were taken down. A single tranquilizer gun would have worked, and he heard reports that Dr. Foster's summer intern took the man down with a taser. And not just any taser, but a civilian model. Again, embarrassing.

There's a knock on the door, and then it slides open, revealing Coulson, balancing three plates with chocolate cake on them. Natasha rolls her eyes, Clint shakes his head, and Coulson hands around the plates and folders that he had tucked under his arm. There are a handful of undercover things that need the Black Widow's "personal" touch, especially since they're in Russia or the former USSR, and Clint's been assigned more scientist babysitting duty, this time at some joint SHIELD-NASA base in the middle of yet another desert. At least he's guaranteed running water in this place, and a much lower risk of some random alien showing that SHEILD agents really aren't as well-trained as they think they are, but Clint's getting pretty tired of deserts. The cake was actually pretty good; Coulson says that he made a run into Manhattan to pick it up since the mess hall was serving pie a la mode, and the ice cream had looked like it was about to grow legs. Coulson swore that the pie had blinked at him.

They're gifted with a week of downtime, although that time was mostly spent on land, helping Natasha get ready to go off again, then Clint's tossing his gear into a duffel bag and hopping onto a Quinjet, then a helicopter, to get to this base. On the way, he pulls out a computer and starts doing a bit more research into this scientist. Funny that the two hadn't run into each other in New Mexico, but that was then, and now he needs to figure out a way to do his job and not go crazy from the boredom.

The scientist, some Dr. Selvig, wasn't too happy to see him, that was for sure, and spent almost a whole day following Coulson around complaining about how he didn't _need_ a babysitter or a personal guard, especially when that guard was some muscle-brained idiot who probably only thought about working out, how he looked in the mirror, and girls. He was struck silent rather quickly when Coulson finally pointed out that Hawkeye had been there for _three days_ before letting himself be seen, and that the "muscle-brained idiot" had hacked into Selvig's personal files and e-mail on his way to the research base. It had only taken him a second day to get a fix on Selvig's cell phone. When Selvig appeared to be about to start yelling about privacy and how he had _rights_, Clint mentioned the forms he'd signed before starting work meant that yes, SHIELD really did have the right – and the expectation – to keep an eye on all correspondence, but he was really going to stay out of Selvig's way; he'd found a few places where he could do his job and not worry about being underfoot, but this was probably going to be a long-term thing, at least a year, if not more, so it might be best to let Agent Coulson keep on doing what he needed to be doing, and get back to work..

Clint was right. Until the Tesseract started throwing off those gamma rays and everything went to hell in a handbasket, it was boring.


End file.
